Acts 16: 9-15
NPMC
Psalm 67
6 Easter
Revelation 21: 10, 22-22:5
May 9, 2010
John 14: 23-29
Anita Retzlaff
Keepers of the Word
Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the
Christ. In our moment of silent prayer this morning we think about the political
and financial instability around the world due to the heavy debt load that many
countries are carrying. We pray for sound financial solutions at the national
level but we also search our hearts and reflect upon the ways in which we spend,
save and borrow money. Let us pray for God’s help in being generous and
responsible with the resources that we have…. Lord of earth and sea, of sky and
air, we live in a land of possibility and plenty. Guide us in our financial
decisions so that we might give honour and glory to you, the source of all of
our gifts and challenges. Help us work for just distribution of resources so
that all creation might flourish. AMEN
Are you clear about resurrection? Can you tell me what happens after that stone
is rolled against the opening of Jesus’ tomb and he is considered dead and
contained? Do we know what takes place in those intervening hours between the
time that Jesus is pronounced dead and the morning on which he disappears from
death? Resurrection transcends our categories of understanding. Jesus leaves
death behind and we have lived in the intervening 2000 years puzzling over what
exactly that means for us.
John the gospel writer tries to help us with that. The text for today is taken
from the 14th chapter of John locating us in the Jesus story well before
crucifixion takes place and resurrection is discovered. Jesus is preparing his
disciples for a truly incomprehensible event; he is preparing them for his
“going-coming.” If that sounds strange just look at verse 28 which reads: “You
heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’” Jesus is going
and coming; going soon and coming again. Well, O.K. that doesn’t help us solve
the mystery of resurrection but stick with me. In the dying and disappearing,
coming and going, we remember that all of Jesus’ words are directed to his love
for his disciples reflected in God’s love for all creation, including us. The
mystery of God’s coming and going is for us to discover. And even though there
is much that is hard for us to explain, this is good news.
So what does John’s gospel reveal to us in this season of Easter, living as we
do, on this side of resurrection? How do we live likes ones who are not afraid,
who believe that in Christ’s going he is coming again and that death no longer
has the last word or controls our lives? The disciples ask these same questions
in the verses leading up to our passage for today. Peter asks Jesus, “Lord,
where are you going? Lord, why can I not follow you, now? I will lay down my
life for you. Then Thomas asks, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How
can we know the way?” Finally Philip asks of Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father
and we will be satisfied.”
Of all these questions directed to Jesus the one that catches me in my deepest
place of need is Thomas’: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we
know the way?” In this time after resurrection we are encouraged to ‘be not
afraid’ because Christ is risen; Christ is going and coming. Yet I continue to
ask, “How will I know the way?” And how do I take courage in the face of death
because death scares me?
“Those who love me will keep my word,” Jesus says. Ah! This is the way! We do
not have to build an arsenal of proofs of God’s existence or unpack the “how-to”
of Jesus’ resurrection, we do not have to rely on our own purity or perfection
to find our way to the Father, to eternity with God. We find our way by keeping
Jesus’ word. Last week the CMU men’s choir sang the hauntingly beautiful piece,
“If you love me keep my commandments.” That music, those words have been
floating through my mind over and over in these last days as I try to bring them
to you as testimony of my faith in God’s goodness.
Can I put into words what I believe about Jesus’ rising from the dead, about
Jesus’ promise to come again, about Jesus’ relationship to the Father and to the
Holy Spirit that are reflected in this passage of scripture that we have been
given today? I will try. For me it all hinges on Jesus’ patient and
compassionate encouragement to his bewildered and anxious friends: “Those who
love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to
them and make our home with them” (14:23). You and I have been charged with the
ministry of keeping. You and I are keepers of the word. In the coming and going,
dying and rising of our Lord Jesus Christ we are participants in these events
because God includes us in his heart. The heart of God encompasses all that we
know of love for each other, love for our world, love for the divine creativity
that made us. God’s love is never away from us. It is always present in the
different expressions we have been given to describe this truth in our lives.
God is present to us in the earthy life of Jesus when the hundreds or thousands
of human beings saw him face to face over the course of his earthly life. Jesus
went away as a human being and also comes to us as the Spirit of God that blows
in our midst. How will we know the way? Jesus, in the Spirit of the Father and
of truth is always with us. This is a statement of faith and not one of
scientific fact or empirical measurement. But it is the truth of life for me and
come to think of it most things that are of greatest importance to me do not
have physical proofs attached. God has made me a keeper of the Word.
God has made you a keeper of the word. In that keeping and tending, observance
and fulfillment we are being drawn into the life and influence of God who is
Father, Son, Spirit. In keeping Jesus’ word we come to know, in fits and starts,
what it means that God is love and that the sum total of what we do during our
lifetimes has to be how well we have loved others. There isn’t anything else
that matters. Love is the sum total of who God is. And as Jesus tells his
followers, “We”, meaning Jesus himself and God and the Spirit that will come as
Advocate, will make their home inside of us. God dwells in us. We are the
keepers of God’s word. We are intimately connected to the divine and that is how
we will know the way. Through the indwelling of Jesus in our very selves we come
to know that we need not fear and especially we need not fear death.
This does not mean that we deny the reality of death because it is indeed all
around us and we will all someday die. Death is not something to fear if we
challenge the power that it seems to have over us. In our society everything is
geared to fend off death: stave it off as long as possible. Buy the skin creams,
the hair colouring, the clothes, the stuff that will keep us looking and acting
young. The message is that aging and old and death are bad. Jesus leaves us his
peace. For me that peace is the health and strength to challenge the world’s way
of categorizing what is old and weak and dying as bad. God’s eternity values all
of us at every stage of life, in times of vigour and in times of frailty. When
we believe that God lives in us even now and remains with us in death and after
death - we need not fear death. God’s presence in us for all eternity, past,
present and future, has more power.
As keepers of the word we have been given the benediction of God’s peace instead
of a worldly fear of death. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I
do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and
do not let them be afraid” (14: 27). I am the first one to say that I do not
always live like I believe this. I often go right along with the world’s way of
avoiding death and try to wall myself into a little impregnable fortress of
safety and security. But that’s not the way to live.
In an address given at the Lutheran Theological Seminary’s study conference this
past week Craig Satterlee, the guest speaker, made a stunning statement. He
interpreted a very common saying of Jesus in a really Anabaptist way that caught
me off guard. He suggests that the oft-quoted phrase of Jesus, “deny yourselves,
take up your cross and follow me” means not that we deprive ourselves of family
and possessions so that we become more holy but rather that we practice
forgiveness. Think about that. We set ourselves aside. We deny ourselves the
pleasure of harbouring grudges, bad feelings, shame, guilt, self-loathing and
hatred of others by stepping out and forgiving those who hurt and offend us.
That would be the way of nonviolent resistance, would it not? That would be the
way of living the peace of Christ would it not? This is tough and is a process
but it is rich food for thought.
Jesus dies and rises, comes and goes; transformation is ever a part of the story
of God-with-us. We have been given a heads-up by Jesus as to the way in which he
goes and the way in which we choose to live our lives. We are keepers of the
word, bearers of good news. Everything we need we have been given. We know the
way for it is marked by love and forgiveness; transformative power that is given
each one of us to offer and to share with the world. On this day of honouring
our mothers and gratitude for families of love and support, we hold closely the
mystery of God’s dwelling inside of us. For this makes of us strong and
courageous keepers of the Word who go out into the daily stuff of life as people
of forgiveness and love. Let it be so. AMEN.